New northern beaches hospital to be funded by the private sector

Workplace Editor

"This innovative model is the first for NSW": Gillian Skinner. Photo: Janie Barrett

The private sector will be asked to build and operate a 423-bed hospital on the northern beaches to complement Mona Vale Hospital, which will be redeveloped and reduced in size.

Manly Hospital will close as foreshadowed and bed numbers at Mona Vale Hospital will be reduced from 142 to 66.

Health Minister Jillian Skinner said expressions of interest would be invited from the private sector to design, construct and run the new hospital at Frenchs Forest. It will include 173 beds for privately insured patients and is due to open in 2018.

Mrs Skinner said the successful tenderer would be a private or not-for-profit hospital operator. The hospital would revert to public ownership in 20 years.

Advertisement

"This innovative model is a first in NSW,'' she said. "Partnering with a private or not-for-profit hospital operator will allow the hospital to be built faster, delivering better value for the taxpayers of NSW.''

Mrs Skinner said the government had learnt lessons from the failed privatisation of Port Macquarie Hospital. She said the public private partnership model used would be more flexible than the one for Port Macquarie. It would be similar to the model used at Joondalup Health Campus in West Australia.

The hospital will include an emergency department and provide surgical, medical, paediatric, obstetric and inpatient mental health services.

The new hospital will be built on a 6.5 hectare site bounded by Frenchs Forest Road West, Warringah Road, Wakehurst Parkway and the Forest High School.

Opposition health spokesman Andrew McDonald said he had serious concerns about the private model following the failure of the Port Macquarie Hospital privatisation.

''The private sector was unable to provide health care for everyone, which is why we needed to buy the hospital back. As the auditor-general said in 1996, NSW paid for the hospital twice and then gave it away,'' he said.

''What is going to happen when the public beds fill up in winter? Will they free private beds for public patients?''

A spokeswoman for Mrs Skinner said private patients are being treated in public beds at Mona Vale and Manly hospitals and this would no longer occur when the new hospital opened. ''The flexibility of the contract with the Northern Beaches Hospital operator will mean public patients could potentially be treated in private beds at times of high demand,'' she said.